Evaluation of UAV Flight Altitude for Accurate Mangrove Canopy Height Estimation: A Case Study from Melgonze, Persian Gulf, Iran

Abstract

Abstract. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become valuable tools for high-resolution ecological monitoring, particularly in complex environments such as mangrove forests. This study investigates the impact of flight altitude on the accuracy of tree height estimation in the Melgonze mangrove forest, in southern Iran. Two UAV flights were conducted at altitudes of 100 meters and 150 meters using a DJI Phantom 4 Pro, and photogrammetric processing was performed using Agisoft Metashape. A total of 16 mangrove trees were measured in the field to provide ground-truth reference data. Canopy height models (CHMs) were generated from both UAV datasets and compared to the field measurements. Preliminary results indicate that the 100-meter flight achieved higher accuracy, with a lower root mean square error (RMSE =21.2 cm), Mean Absolute Error (18.94 cm), and a higher coefficient of determination (R² = 0.97) compared to the 150-meter flight (43.3 cm, 35 cm, and 0.92, respectively). These findings underscore the significance of flight altitude in UAV-based assessments of forest structure and offer practical guidelines for optimizing data acquisition in future mangrove mapping applications.

Plant phenotyping relevance

UAV画像と写真測量によるマングローブ樹高推定を対象に、飛行高度が推定精度へ与える影響を実測値と比較検証しており、植物形質取得法の技術評価が中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper describes UAV flights, field tree-height measurements, and Agisoft Metashape processing, but contains no data availability statement, no public repository, no code, and no shared datasets or models. Only figures and the article itself are present, which do not qualify.

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